Only a tiny percentage of fully vaccinated Americans have contracted COVID-19, according to new data released on Friday - leading to accusations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scaremongering by issuing dire warnings about the Delta variant.
The Delta variant is sweeping the United States and causing a significant surge in cases. Mask mandates have been reintroduced in areas such as Los Angeles County, and the CDC on Tuesday recommended that all people resume wear masks indoors.
Yet on Friday it emerged that the risk for fully vaccinated people was incredibly small - leading a former White House coronavirus advisor to label the CDC's communication strategy a 'disaster.'
Only 6,587 - or 0.004 per cent - of the 163 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had suffered serious 'breakthrough' infections as of Monday.
The CDC on Friday published its latest data, showing that only 0.004 per cent of fully vaccinated Americans have been hospitalized or died from COVID-19
A mass vaccination site is seen in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on January 15. The CDC is recommending that vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent serious illness from COVID-19
Of that total, 6,239 people were hospitalized and 1,263 died, according to the data.
Those numbers amount to 0.0038 percent and less than 0.0008 percent, respectively.
Admiral Brett Giroir, who served on Donald Trump's COVID taskforce, told Fox News on Friday that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky made a mistake in failing to disclose the full data until Friday.
'One thing that I think was a disaster is to come out with recommendations when you had the data but didn't disclose the data,' he said.
The CDC was criticized this week by politicians and scientists alike for updating the mask guidance without detailing the science behind it.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, told The
